How much income tax does the state lose because of its commuter tax laws? Just how pervasive is the loss of commuter income tax revenue? - Taxes: Commuter Tax Issues - poconorecord.com - Stroudsburg, PA

How much income tax does the state lose because of its commuter tax laws? Just how pervasive is the loss of commuter income tax revenue?

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania has lost $5.3 million in Monroe County alone to income tax exemptions granted residents who work in New York, Delaware or other states and countries that don’t have reciprocal tax-sharing agreements with the Commonwealth.

According to Pennsylvania Revenue Department figures for 2000, more than 3,500 Monroe County residents were granted exemptions from paying at least some of the 2.8 percent state income tax.

Lost state income tax revenue is even more pronounced in Pike County, where residents are as likely to work in nearby Port Jervis or Middletown, N.Y., as in the Big Apple.

The Pennsylvania Revenue Department requires taxpayers to enter their local school dis-trict code on state returns, for use by the state Education Department in figuring some state school subsidy formulas.

The Revenue Department also makes its list of individual tax filers, grouped by school dis-trict, available to school districts that ask for it. Then the districts’ tax collectors can cross-reference the state list — including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and whether filing joint or separate returns — with their own local tax rolls to make sure they haven’t omitted anyone.

"The school district is not required to obtain that information," said Barb Colyer of the Revenue Department’s Bureau of Individual Taxes, though the state will share it with any school district that asks. "I think we handle it about as confidentially as we are authorized to do so."

State Rep. Kelly Lewis, R-189, said the Berkheimer Tax Administrator recently requested his help in gaining access to state tax rolls within one year of filing, rather than the current two-year wait, so the data is more updated. Lewis has agreed to assist the private local tax collector.

State and local tax officials couldn’t explain why Berkheimer, the local Earned Income Tax collector for several school districts and municipalities, has tax rolls for the Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg school districts showing nearly a third more tax filers than the state lists for the same geographic boundaries.

One possible explanation is that many married couples file joint state returns, but separate local Earned Income Tax returns.

Even with fewer total filers, more state filers in each school district received exemptions from state income tax than from the local Earned Income Tax.